Homemade cards by 2 year olds

Teddy bear thank you cards

I’ve always liked doing thank you cards for the girls. They aren’t old enough yet to write a proper thank you letter but I kind of like them getting g in the practice of showing the are grateful for what they receive. Children are so lucky these days and they get such wonderful presents. I worry they will become spoilt, however I think they only do if they are not taught that they should receive all presents – even the pair of socks – gratefully. Maybe I’m fooling myself.

Anyway the twins were two recently and although they love to scribble a letter is out of the question. However card making is such a nice activity and the bonus part is that you get to give away the fruits of their labour – so no pile of scribbles to collect dust.

I don’t think you can do many focussed activities with two-year olds like this as their attention span and my patience won’t stretch that far. It takes a bit of setting up and everyone has to be in the right mood. You can’t just leave them to it when glue is involved. However I was pleasantly surprised how absorbed they were in the activity and how long they kept doing it. You also have to give up any idea the end result will be perfect. 2 year olds will not want to do things your way. However with a little bit of surreptitious moving around I was able to make the finish cards look enough like teddy bears to get away with it.

What we used:

craft foam 1 large and 2 small dark brown circles and one small cream circle

two google eyes

a button

blank card

small squares of patterned paper

a thank you stamp or stickers

While the twins were having their nap I got everything ready. I stuck on some patterned paper cut into squares and used a stamp to say thank you on the front and inside the cards. I arranged all the foam shapes into small pots so it was all ready. All they have to do s stick it all together.

Lots of sticky fun.

It’s also great for learning what a circle is as all the shapes are circles.

The interesting thing about this activity was that Charlotte managed this the best. She generally prefers making a mess to concentrating, but this shows that you can’t make assumptions about what they will do. She made about 6 cards and Rose made two. Charlotte really enjoyed making a finished picture and making a teddy, whereas Rose preferred to play with the glue and wasn’t that interested in making a teddy.

The finished cards. I love how wonky they are!
We made a different variation using teddies cut from foam. I drew around a small cookie cutter to make them the same size.